compulsory

eminent domain

Government power to take private property for public use without the owner's consent. Constitutional provisions in most countries, including the U.S. (in the 5th Amendment to the Constitution), require the payment of just compensation to the owner. As a power peculiar to sovereign authority and coupled with a duty to pay compensation, the concept was developed by such 17th-century natural-law jurists as Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf. Seealsoconfiscation.

Compulsory enrollment for service in a country's armed forces. It has existed at least since the Egyptian Old Kingdom in the 27th century BC. It usually takes the form of selective service rather than universal conscription. (The latter generally refers to compulsory military service by all able-bodied men between certain ages, though a few countries—notably Israel—have also drafted women.) In the 19th century Prussia's system of building up a large standing army through conscription became the model for competing European powers. During the American Civil War both the federal government and the Confederacy instituted a draft, but the U.S. did not use it again until entering World War I in 1917. Like the U.S., Britain abandoned conscription at the end of World War I but reverted to it when World War II threatened. During the ensuing Cold War, Britain retained the draft until 1960 and the U.S. until 1973. SeealsoU.S. Army.